


Living with...

by Peskychloe



Series: Haikyuu!! Skaters [11]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-21 18:19:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11949957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peskychloe/pseuds/Peskychloe
Summary: A study of living together starring Yuuji and Chikara.





	Living with...

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for talk of mental health problems.

Living with Yuuji was easy.

He cooked them food in the evenings. Chikara still hadn't been able to successfully prepare anything; there was always an ingredient he forgot to add, or didn't even buy. He often burnt the rice although there was a rice cooker.

Yuuji remembered to put out the recycling bins on the right day. He separated the recycling in the first place, Chikara just put everything in the same one.

It was usually Yuuji who walked Ronnie when Chikara was tired from working a long shift into the evening, or going out to a concert to do a review. Yuuji fed her as well, because he was always up first. Even if he wasn't up first, Chikara would forget and wonder why she was being so friendly.

Chikara knew how to use the washing machine, but he never had to. His clothes would be clean and waiting for him, his only interaction with them putting them on in the morning and putting them in the laundry basket at the end of the day.

Living with Yuuji was fun.

He sang a lot, at the dog, at Chikara, at nothing at all. He had songs about the laundry, about biscuits, about anything.

Yuuji was energetic. He and Ronnie played catch for hours on the grass outside the house, with Chikara watching from the balcony. Sometimes he had to shout for them to come in, as if he was their father.

They wouldn't go to bed until after midnight, and then Yuuji didn't want to sleep for a while. If he couldn't talk Chikara into sex, or if he was told to stop talking nonsense, he'd watch YouTube. He was last to sleep and first to wake.

Chikara was always being touched, not that he minded. Yuuji had no concept of personal space, flinging himself across Chikara wherever he was, hanging onto his arms and legs. If he was ever tired, eventually, Yuuji would become a heavy weight on top of him, who could sleep through just about anything.

Living with Yuuji was _hard_.

It was only when living with Yuuji became hard that Chikara understood how easy and fun it had been in the first place.

Suddenly, he wouldn't be first awake, even though he was still last asleep.

He wouldn't beg Chikara for sex any more; he'd beg him to tell him he could stay under the duvet, that he didn't have to go outside. Chikara missed the heavy weight of his limbs, and that was when he realised he wasn't being touched at all any more.

They lived on what Chikara could cook, which was next to nothing. He ran out of clean clothes and they missed the bin men.

Ronnie would curl up with Yuuji on the sofa, butting his hand with her nose, before padding over to Chikara, and then he would remember he had to walk her still.

Just as Chikara began to think that moving in with Yuuji had been the cause for this mood shift, and was wondering whether to move back out again, he'd come home to the smell of baking pasta and a song about tomatoes wafting through the door as he went upstairs.

Life with Yuuji became fun and easy again.

Then it became hard again.

And Chikara fell more in love with Yuuji with each change, because every time Yuuji came back, it was like a long lost lover had returned.

He learnt what it was to live with someone properly. He taught himself to cook, made sure he did his share of the housework, stopped forgetting their dog needed attention too. He didn't do this to make Yuuji happy, although that was a side benefit; he did it to keep things running during the difficult times.

Because those times kept coming, almost always without warning. They would last a day or a week or one time it was a whole month.

Chikara would act as the safety net for however long it was, drag him to the meetings every week, keep the house stocked with good food and love and warmth.

They were both glad they chose to adopt Ronnie, who became company for Yuuji when he was home alone, as well as company for Chikara when Yuuji wouldn't talk to him (or anyone else). Having both Chikara and Ronnie meant Yuuji couldn't completely self-destruct because he had no private space to do so, people there who didn't want him to.

Only once did Ronnie have to be Chikara's company because Yuuji disappeared for a night. He texted at three in the morning with two words - “I'm safe” - and Chikara buried his head into Ronnie's fur and cried with relief.

Little by little, though, the difficult times came less often – although they still came, and they always would.

Living with Chikara made it easier for Yuuji to live with Yuuji.

 

\--

 

Living with Chikara was like nothing else he'd ever experienced.

Since he went to university, he'd only ever lived alone. Now and again someone would stay with him for a few days, especially when he was at college, but it was only ever temporary.

It was for the best, he knew he was hard to live with because he found it hard to not be alone.

He'd always tell people he thought he wouldn't find anyone he could bear to live with, he liked his own company too much. In reality, he believed he'd never find anyone who could put up with living with _him._

He couldn't put his finger on how he was hard to live with; he only knew for certain that he was, he must be. His parents had always told him he was difficult, in the most general of terms, which surely could only mean there was something wrong with him which made him terrible to be around.

Living with Chikara was uplifting.

Chikara would be happy to see him when he came home. He didn't tell him to be quiet – only at bedtime when he was trying to sleep and Yuuji was telling him something which seemed incredibly important about a cartoon he watched as a child.

It was liberating to be able to cook for someone else. It was a chore when he was younger, something which had to be done, and which his mother never particularly appreciated. Like the fact he was the only boy in his class at school who did his own laundry, bought his own clothes and did most of the housework.

She couldn't help it. He knew that. But it was harder once his father left, for both of them.

Yuuji was hard to live with, apparently, but he tried the best he could to be easier to live with. It had been good practice, because now he had a household which seemed to be running smoothly and happily.

Now someone would walk through the door, take a huge theatrical sniff and tell him they were starving. And he loved every minute.

Living with Chikara was exhausting.

Not from looking after the house, he could do that in his sleep.

The company was tiring. He knew it would be, he was so used to being in his own space, but he hadn't quite appreciated how tiring it was just having someone _there_ , even if they were silent. It seemed a tremendous effort to not be that difficult person he knew he could be if he didn't work at it.

He would often lay awake terrified that Chikara would find out what he was really like, decide it wasn't worth it any more.

If the thoughts became too much, he'd sing to cover them up. If his legs were twitching uncomfortably, he'd run around with the dog until they didn't.

The absolute best moments were when he'd forget everything by being swaddled by Chikara's limbs. On particularly bad days, he'd crave sex to be able to think about the good parts of himself for five minutes, to be able to fall asleep quickly and peacefully.

Slowly, living with Chikara wore away his disguise, and living with Yuuji became difficult for everyone.

He distanced himself to make it easier when Chikara would inevitably leave. He stopped talking to or touching him so he wouldn't miss him when he wasn't there any more.

He tried to hate Ronnie, because the time would come when she would go with Chikara, or she'd die, because everything always did.

He stopped going to work; Alisa took over all his clients and everyone waited for him to go back. Take your time, they said. He couldn't help but feel that this time would be the last, because this time Chikara would surely leave and he wasn't sure he could cope without him.

But then a weird thing happened; Chikara didn't leave.

Yuuji became even more introverted, in case Chikara wanted to go but had lingering feelings for him. But he still came home every day. It was lucky Yuuji wasn't hungry, because his cooking was terrible, and that he didn't care that the house was a mess, because Chikara was untidy and a touch lazy.

It was lucky for him that Chikara kept coming back, because it enabled Yuuji to come back too.

He started singing again, but this time out of joy and not to cover up worrying he would be abandoned. Chikara started helping out in the house more and Yuuji started to be convinced that this was it, that maybe he wasn't going to leave. Maybe someone would stay this time.

He would still slip up; he'd been having bad days for twenty-five years, they weren't going to stop now. No matter how angry he got or how much he cried, it never drove Chikara away. He started to wonder if anything ever would.

One regrettable day, he decided to test this hypothesis and disappeared for the night. He left work at noon to get drunk at a pub, and then hung around at Daishou's after he finished work himself.

He received a text at midnight from Chikara, saying he understood if he needed space, hoped he was safe, and that he'd try and talk to Daishou the next day. He lay on the sofa thinking to himself, what the fuck am I doing? Then after three hours of getting angry at Chikara for not leaving and thanking the gods he hadn't left, he texted to say he was fine.

He would never understand what Chikara got out of living with him, but he knew he wanted it to carry on forever.

**Author's Note:**

> I think at this point Yuuji is starting to believe Chikara loves him. He's not cured, but he's definitely safer than he was when I started writing this au.


End file.
